Trump’s a Republican Now

Donald Trump, the erstwhile Democrat, independent and member of the Reform Party, finally has a fixed partisan identity.

The president may be besieged, unpopular and prone to lashing out self-destructively, but all of this cements his bond to his party rather than erodes it. Commentators who ask wishfully and plaintively, “When will Republicans dump Trump and save themselves?” are missing the point: Trump’s weakness makes him more Republican than ever before.

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It was possible to imagine Trump, with a head of steam after his upset victory in November, cowing swamp-dwelling Republicans and wooing infrastructure-loving, anti-trade Democrats into supporting a populist congressional agenda. Maybe this was always a pipe dream given the instantaneous rise of the #resistance against him. But this scenario would have required a strong, focused president marshaling his popularity and driving Congress.

We’ve seen close to the opposite. Trump threw away any chance for a relative honeymoon with unremitting controversies and blow-ups, many of them avoidable. No one on his team had carefully thought through what exactly a populist agenda would be, or how to move it through Congress. Whatever whip hand he might have had in dealing with congressional Republicans dissipated with his declining popularity and his lackluster performance during the House health care debate.

And, of course, there’s the so-called Russia investigation. “Russia” is a misnomer. The controversy is now shifting from being about supposed Trump-campaign collusion to alleged obstruction of justice and whatever else special counsel Robert Mueller dredges up in what will probably be a free-ranging, years-long investigation.

So, whatever Trump’s true ideological predilections, there’s no place for him to go. Make deals with the Democrats? At this point, Democrats are more likely to cooperate with Sergey Kislyak on an infrastructure package than with Trump. Perhaps reflecting this state of play, Trump’s infrastructure ideas have been moving steadily rightward.

Dump or triangulate away from Republicans? Well, then who would do scandal defense, aside from a handful of White House aides and outside media loyalists? Imagine what the Comey or Sessions hearings would have looked like if Republicans had joined Democrats in piling on.

The need for support on Capitol Hill could well grow more urgent if things go badly during the next year and a half. If Democrats take the House, Trump will rely on Republicans for an impeachment defense and, if it comes to that, for the votes in the Senate to block removal. In other words, whatever Trump’s past public disdain for him, or his current private view, he’ll need Marco Rubio—and every other Republican he can get.

In one sense, this suits Trump. He may have a questionable partisan pedigree, but he is a natural partisan—smashmouth, heedless of process and norms, willing to make whatever argument suits him at any particular moment. There have been many Republicans who have opposed Chuck Schumer before; it took Trump to call him a “clown.”

As for congressional Republicans, they, too, don’t have much choice. Like or not, whatever they tell reporters privately about their true feelings toward Trump, his fate is their fate.

First, a president’s approval rating heavily influences midterm elections. The outcome in the campaign for the House will presumably be much different depending on whether Trump is at 35 or 45 percent. Republicans dumping Trump wouldn’t make him any more popular.

Second, such a distancing is not really politically practicable. If Republicans try to skitter away from Trump, their base will roast them. There’s no reason to think that at this point the dynamic would be any different than after the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape, when Republicans dumping Trump were quickly forced to pick him right back up again. This is why it’s foolish to look for signs of party fissures in what a very concerned and thoughtful Republican senator says on a Sunday talk show; it matters much more what the base thinks, and it’s still with Trump.

(It’s one thing for conservative pundits and writers to maintain a critical distance from Trump; it’s another thing entirely for Republican officeholders who represent and answer to real, live Republican voters to do it.)

Third, Republicans want to get some things done legislatively. A poisonous split with the White House wouldn’t help. Trump may be a mercurial and frustrating partner, denouncing as “mean” a House health care bill that he had vigorously supported a few weeks ago. But he is a partner all the same. Trump desperately wants accomplishments from Capitol Hill, even if he doesn’t truly know how to help and doesn’t care about the details.

Finally, most Republicans—quite legitimately—think the Russian controversy is a media-driven travesty. If there were a smoking gun, this posture would probably change (obviously, in that circumstance, it should change). But Democrats are in no position to lecture Republicans on cutting loose a president of their own party when they twisted themselves in knots to defend Bill Clinton after he lied under oath over an affair that violated every feminist principle the party professed to hold. And now they lionize the man.

If Trump and Republicans had their druthers, neither would be in quite this position—Trump wouldn’t be lashed to every conventional Republican in Congress, and those Republicans wouldn’t, in turn, be wedded to an outlandishly unconventional president. But this is the reality for everyone in the party. For now, there’s no way out, only through, and through it together.